Oshawa General - Trespassers will be maimed by a giant-ass mechanical arm!

I was going to write about something else this week, but something came up that is really going to piss you all off.

A friend of mine was taking her 83-year-old mother to the Oshawa General Hospital a few days ago, and her mother was driving. When they got to the arm of the barrier-gate at the parking garage, her mother couldn’t quite reach the ticket that the machine spit out at her, so my friend gets out of the car, walks around the front of the car and takes the ticket. On her way back to her side of the car, the gate lowers down literally on her face, and won’t stop. So she’s on the ground, face bleeding with the wind knocked clear out of her. The security guard comes out and can’t say anything because he’s never seen so much blood (and he works at a hospital). He invites her into the security office, but she doesn’t want to get blood all over the floor. So she’s trying to wipe the blood off her with an old towel from the back of the car, and naturally, people are getting impatient and honking because they want to get into the parking garage, and her mother can’t do anything because she’s trapped in the drivers door by the ticket machine, and she can’t crawl over the seat because she’s only got one leg. Etc.

So instead of going with her mother to her appointment, she ends up in the ER with a broken and lacerated nose, and bruising on her face and chest.

This is part one. Before we get to part two of this saga, I believe she is going to write a letter to whoever operates the parking garage. I think she deserves to know why the gate is a danger to anyone near it. For example, what if the gate came down on someone in a convertible who was driving through? The gate doesn’t budge, so would the driver be decapitated? It’s not a stretch when you look at the mechanics of the gate. Since it's a machine, and machines aren't perfect, shouldn't there be SOME kind of safeguard to prevent this kind of injury?

Trisha-Mary-Joe-Joe of Oshawa failed to observe the correct "parking-gate operation protocol."
She can forget about making it to the hospital now...she just fast-tracked straight to the morgue!

I understand the company wants their money, and wants to make sure no one gets away with parking at the hospital for free, but when it’s obviously putting people in danger, shouldn’t there be some kind of leeway here? Being physically injured with the possibility of being killed seems like a pretty big penalty for someone trying to get away with not paying for parking, let alone for someone who is just trying to get the ticket on the driver’s side. It’s a hospital…I’m sure this isn’t the first time something like this has happened because as far as I know, people with physical limitations often have to park at a hospital.

I WILL update this story in the coming weeks. This is something that everyone needs to be aware of.